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An astonishing question and comment at the Linden Commission of Inquiry

Oct 25, 2012 Letters

 

DEAR EDITOR,
I listened with astonishment to the question and comment directed toward Mr Desmond Trotman MP at the Linden Commission of Inquiry.  Commission Chairman Justice Lensley Wolfe, who had asked whether persons had the right to break the law, asked Trotman: “are you suggesting that the failure of the government to do something entitled a person affected by that failure to break the law?”
When the APNU MP and WPA activist continued to defend the occupation of the Mackenzie/Wismar Bridge, Commissioner Wolfe came up with a shocking rejoinder:”it is indeed disappointing to hear a member of the legislature saying what you are saying.”
Both statements by Chairman Wolfe are remarkable for their absence of context and history, and constitute crass disrespect for the MP, whose duty it is to represent people’s grievances in all conditions and formats, whether the people of Linden or any others engaged in mass protest in Guyana.
Commissioner Wolfe’s preoccupation with “order” is based on social class and power and shows complete disdain for the historical struggles of working people in Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean, including mass demonstrations. Maybe he and some of the other Commissioners would do well to reflect on Caribbean history.  He cannot be unaware of Jamaica’s past of civil disobedience whether of union, political party, or the masses of men and women, who after countless exhortations to civil society and government, have been forced to take peaceful protest to the streets.
He must surely also be aware of the many times that such peaceful protests included acts of civil disobedience. A Jamaican, he must have heard of the Morant Bay revolt of 1865 where the colonial state led by a law and order Governor, shot and killed protestors in their hundreds in the aftermath of unrest where a courthouse was stormed.
The Baptist deacon Paul Bogle, a leader of the people’s protest against a crippling poll tax was later hanged; today he is a national hero of Jamaica. Civil disobedience may be non-violent or it might lead to riots. 1865 was an illegal assembly before it became a full scale riot.
In Guyana there have been countless demonstrations and riots against civil and police authority.  We can name the 1872 Devonshire Castle indentured labourer protests,  the Angel Gabriel riots of 1856, the 1889 Stabroek Market “cent bread” riot, the shooting of sugar workers at Enmore during a demonstration, the 1905 riots, the 1924 Ruimveldt labour protests and shooting of workers, and countless other exhibitions of civil unrest.
What was the cause of these events?  Were the people just deliberately unlawful? No, riots and planned civil disobedience always arrive after simmering discontent occasioned by the failure of formal structures of appeal or lack of representation by members of the legislature.
In all these cases, whether civil disobedience, labour demonstrations or riots across the region, the one unifying element is that there were countless demands for change which fell on deaf ears prior to the unrest.
It is not my place to tell Commissioner Wolfe or any Commissioner what questions to direct, but a better question from Mr Wolfe – given that he has come to investigate alleged police violence against the people – would have been to enquire as to the sources of the grievances and unrest that caused the demonstrations in the first place – the angst that made the men and women of Linden take to the streets to demand their rights.
Cause and effect in science is equally applicable to responses of human beings. Walter Rodney’s history of the 1905 riots provides one of the best examples of context and identifies the real “owners” of violence.
During the riots in Georgetown, one Guyanese demonstrator told a British soldier: “The people are doing nothing. It is the Government who are rioting and shooting down the people.”
Nigel Westmaas

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